The Balance Omnibus

by Alan Baxter

  ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck!’ Faith swore through gritted teeth. She felt so stupid. Still, screw Gabby. Faith was a Pagan, she believed in the Wiccan threefold law. Whatever a person does is returned to them threefold, be it good or evil. Gabby would get her deception back three times as bad from someone else, some time not long from now.

  Once, in a shop in Katoomba, Faith had ended up in a deep argument with another Wiccan about the law. The person in the shop had maintained that it was a modern invention in Wicca, added as some form of ethical barometre by Pagan wannabes. It was not in the Book Of Shadows and had no place in Wiccan lore, according to this person. Faith had argued that every person’s Book Of Shadows was allowed to be expanded as long as the original text was copied in full. Therefore, if the threefold law was added, as she had added it to hers, then it was in the Book Of Shadows and would be in the Book for anyone that followed her. The argument had become circuitous before long and the shopkeeper had told them to take it outside. Faith apologised and the man that had disagreed with her had stormed out. She smiled at the memory.

  Whatever. She had set herself out on a path and that path was not always going to go the way she wanted. But she did need to stay true to it and to herself. She would still succeed at this without Gabby’s help. She would find her own way in life and not bow down before the norm that was expected of her.

  There was a metal locker at the foot of each bed, with a clasp that could be locked with a simple padlock. People were expected to supply their own padlock. Faith put her bag into the locker and stood staring at it, wondering where she would find a padlock and if her stuff would be safe in the meantime. She heard someone come into the six bed dorm.

  ‘Hello!’ The voice was horribly cheery and very English. One of the millions of backpackers that rampaged through the country year after year. Faith despised them, flooding through the Blue Mountains in their thousands, grinning at cameras with the Three Sisters at their backs before piling back into Oz Experience mini-buses to hurry to the next photo opportunity.

  She took a deep breath, reminding herself to be nice. Not everyone was as bad as the stereotype. She turned around. ‘G’day.’

  The girl was chubby, dark brown hair cut into a bob. It did terrible things to her round face. ‘Ooh, you’re Australian? I thought everyone here was English!’

  Faith had heard at least a dozen different accents, European and American mainly, while she checked in. The girl was obviously trying to be funny. She smiled. ‘Yeah. I’ve just moved to Sydney from out west.’ For some reason she didn’t want to tell any details of her life story to this chirpy backpacker.

  ‘Isn’t Sydney amazing?’ The girl emphasised the second ‘a’ in amazing. ‘I’m Emma.’

  Faith shook her hand self-consciously. ‘Faith.’

  Emma smiled a massive smile. ‘Hi!’ She over-emphasised the ‘i’ this time.

  Faith couldn’t help being amused by her unbelievably over-the-top good mood. She was probably suicidally depressed inside. Faith tried to smile back as naturally as possible. ‘Hey, you haven’t seen a shop where I can get a padlock, have you?’

  ‘They sell them at reception downstairs.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. But they’ve run out. I’m not comfortable leaving this unlocked until tomorrow.’ Faith thought how that must sound. ‘You know, I mean, I’m not worried that someone in this room would steal from a bed next door or anything, but the rooms aren’t locked. It’s just...’

  Emma held up a hand to stop her mid-flow. ‘Don’t worry about it. I’ve got mine locked. You don’t know who you can trust, these days. There have even been backpacker murders!’

  Faith laughed. ‘That’s true.’

  ‘Always better safe than sorry.’ Emma pulled a key on a piece of string up from inside her t-shirt. She crouched and awkwardly unlocked her own locker. Her bed was opposite Faith’s. ‘I’ve got one you can have,’ Emma said as she struggled. Her own padlock popped apart and she pulled open her locker.

  ‘Oh, you don’t need to do that,’ Faith began.

  ‘You need a padlock and I have a spare one. It’s a ‘just in case’ one, you know. Just in case!’ Emma giggled. She held out a plastic blister pack containing a small brass padlock with two keys.

  Faith smiled. How can this girl be so stupidly happy? ‘Thanks so much.’ She looked at the pack and there was a price sticker on it. ‘How much in Australian dollars is one pound ninety nine?’ she asked.

  Emma flapped her hands, making a very strange face. ‘Don’t worry about it, really. I’ll consider it my good deed for the day.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Of course. Besides, it’s one of the million things my mum bought for me before I left. I’d need two backpacks if I’d brought everything she wanted me to have with me.’

  Faith smiled. This girl was rather ditzy but she seemed like a genuinely nice person. ‘At least let me buy you coffee then?’ Faith said. ‘I was planning to go downstairs to have one.’

  Emma barked out a laugh that was way too loud for the size of the room. One of the sleeping travellers stirred, but even Emma’s volume was not enough to wake them. The experienced dormitory inhabitant could sleep through an air raid. ‘God, no! If I had a coffee now I’d be like a lunatic all night. I can’t drink coffee after lunchtime or it keeps me up for days.’

  Faith chose not to question the complete illogicality of that statement. ‘A cup of hot chocolate then?’

  ‘No, no, really, I’m fine.’ Emma pulled a wash bag and towel from her locker. ‘I’m just going to have a shower and get to bed. I have to be up early tomorrow.’

  ‘Really? What are you doing?’

  Emma scrunched her shoulders and waved two tight fists in front of her face in theatrical excitement. ‘I’m booked on a bus trip to the Blue Mountains. We’re going to see the Three Sisters! I can’t wait. I’ve wanted to go ever since my friend Kelly showed me her photos last year.’ Faith laughed out loud before she could help herself. Emma seemed to think that was perfectly normal. ‘I know!’ Emma squealed.

  ‘Well, you have a great time,’ Faith said. And she meant it to.

  ‘Oh, I will. Nice to meet you!’

  ‘You too.’

  Emma bustled off towards the bathrooms, bag and towel in hand. Faith shook her head, smiling to herself, and popped open the padlock. She clasped it closed over the catch on her locker and slipped both keys onto her triquetra keyring. She certainly wasn’t ready for bed yet and had a lot of thinking to do.

  She headed to the lift and rode it down to the ground floor. The reception was quieter than it had been when she had arrived, but there was still some activity. She paid way too much for a foul tasting coffee from a vending machine and sat in one of the many lounge chairs ranged around a big communal area. Flyers and brochures were everywhere, offering all the wonders of Australia at special prices for backpackers. Some other people sat around, mostly in small groups. Faith deliberately tuned out their conversations. She had no desire to hear stories about where they were going or where they had been. Backpackers all did the same stuff anyway. She couldn’t understand the attraction of trawling around the world, seeing all the same things as everyone else, staying in hostels with loads of other people the same as yourself and talking about it. Then they would all get drunk and party and hang out with people from their own country trying to fuck each other or outdo each other in stories of how many countries they had ‘done’. It was all so artificial and boring.

  Faith wanted to travel, she wanted to see the world. But she wanted to see the places where the real people were, not the backpacker trail where all the sights were catered and serviced by mini-buses. She stared out the huge glass windows, City Hostel in metre high backwards orange letters, watching a group smoke cigarettes and talk loudly over each other’s conversations.

  She began to practice a spell she had been taught by a weird old lady in the Mountains. It was a way of closing yourself off and being completely calm and centred,
no matter what was happening around you. Really it was just a form of meditation, but the old lady had called it a spell. She had died not long after Faith had met her and Faith had always lamented that. She was convinced that the old lady could have taught her a lot had they been allowed the time.

  She concentrated her mind on her energy centre and began to breathe deeply, using her willpower to draw herself towards a calm state. It was a state in which she could always think more clearly. As her mind settled and her consciousness became an island unto itself, she began to relax, inside and out. She let images of the day slide past her mind and detached her emotions from them. Short, broken visuals and soundbites pattered across in front of her mind’s eye. Hungry eyes in a dark face, ‘Two dollars, sister?’ White sneakers, sunken cheeks, ‘Fuck you! Bitch!’ Clawing skyscrapers, hot air, a tired voice, ‘Good luck finding your friend.’ Faith let the images become history, detached the fear and helplessness attached, let her soul remind her heart that she was capable. Everything would be all right. The Triple Goddess would look after her, the old gods would protect her, she was strong and more than capable.

  ‘Hey, how’s it going?’

  Faith jumped, nearly spilling lukewarm coffee in her lap.

  ‘Sorry! I didn’t mean to startle you.’

  ‘It’s all right, I was lost in thought there.’ She looked up into the earnest face of a man in his early or mid thirties. Or perhaps older. It was very hard to tell, he had one of those ageless faces. He was handsome in a rugged way, with sandy hair and stubble. Quite a pleasant change from the squeaky clean backpackers all around.

  ‘I’m Lars,’ he said, extending a strong looking hand. There were faint scars on it.

  In an unfurnished room in an unremarkable house, a man sat tied to a chair, naked. He sobbed and trembled, his mind on the edge of snapping. His head fell forward, several chins pressing into his chest, and blood dribbled from his mouth and nose, pooling with spit on his lap. Shiny globs of semi-coagulated blood matted together the hair on his fat belly and around his cock. Blood ran thick from one ear, pattered across one shoulder, down to the floor. Drip, pause, drip. Drip, pause, drip. Bruises, livid and swollen, stood out in strident lines across his crooked shins. Some leaked dark blood.

  Before him stood a man clothed head to toe in black, his face covered with a woollen balaclava. His black leather gloves were slick with blood and in one hand he held an iron poker, heavy, glistening matt black. Drops gathered on the curved and stylised end of the poker, shining. The man breathed heavily, the sound muffled by wool across his mouth.

  ‘Don’t you pass out on me yet, you fuck,’ he said, his voice low, menacing.

  He raised the poker again, stepping forward. The man in the chair hitched a loud sob. ‘Please, no more.’ Tears mixed the blood on his face to a ripe pink and ran down his cheeks and chin.

  The man with the poker drew back his arm. ‘In the name of Yath-vados!’ he cried, as he had so many times, and the poker whistled again towards the fat man’s already broken legs.

  In a deep, dark Realm something rumbled a deep, dark laugh.

  6

  Isiah sat in his car and waited, breath condensing in the cold air. He had parked on the opposite side of the street, a hundred yards back, from the house where Filthy Frank had taken part in the ONC’s activities the night before. The house was clearly visible, as was Frank’s battered car parked outside. It was very early, false dawn smudging the eastern horizon with grey and purple shades like a fading bruise. From here he would easily see Frank when he got into his car and he could also see if any other cars left the house. It was quite possible that Frank would abandon his car here and get a lift to the airport. It was also possible that Frank would not be leaving for some hours yet, so Isiah settled down. Waiting came easily to him. There was a certain peace in letting time slip past like the water of a gentle stream.

  The eastern sky brightened as the minutes ran into hours, a golden disc of sun breaking the horizon, rising into an icy, cloudless blue. Orange light like liquid gold spilled across the dashboard of the car and onto his body and face. Its gentle, early warmth was revitalising. No wonder ancient races saw the sun itself as a god and would engage in rituals to ensure it rose each day.

  A movement caught Isiah’s eye. He sat up, the loving caress of the early sun forgotten. He narrowed his eyes, staring up towards the house where Frank was staying, squinting against the bright sunlight. He had definitely seen movement up there. Near the roof. Perhaps it was the surreptitious figure from last night. It was hard to see with the sun as low and bright as it was.

  Isiah slipped smoothly from his car, never taking his eyes from the roofline. He walked steadily along the road, closing the gap between himself and the house, until the angle of the sun and his line of vision separated. As he walked he drew his aura in and clamped down a tight mental cloak. If this person could see his astral self, they would certainly spot his physical aura, even from afar. But he was very good at masking his presence. If the person on the roof was to spot him now they would have to see him the conventional way and that would not necessarily raise any suspicions. They would have to be talented indeed to see through his cloak.

  With the bright rising sun off to one side, he had a clearer view of the roof. He paused, scanning every inch of it. The house was a good fifty or sixty yards away, but Isiah’s eyesight was preternaturally good. He could manipulate himself as easily as he worked his magic on anything, or anyone, else. He could see nothing but roof tiles.

  He drew in a long, slow breath, staring and thinking. This person had seen him in his astral form. So this person certainly had some talent. Perhaps they too were masking themselves, psychically and physically. Isiah let his cloak loosen and cast his mind towards the house, probing, feeling with his will. They spotted each other simultaneously.

  As Isiah saw through the cleverly constructed visual and mental barrier concealing the person on the roof, crouched just above the gutters, that person whipped their head up, stared directly into Isiah’s eyes. They were very talented and extremely sensitive. In a flash they were up and gone. Isiah pounded after them. Not this time!

  As he had touched them very briefly with his mind he had a certain sense of them, like a dog catching a scent. Faint though it might be, it was something to hang on to. The person went up over the roof, trying to put the house between themselves and Isiah. They were dressed in charcoal greys, dark and easily concealed in shadows. Far more effective than black. They had a hood or head covering of some kind, not unlike the popular images of a ninja. Nimble and fast, they cleared the roof in a instant.

  Isiah dropped his psychic cloak and let his willpower gather, running at a phenomenal pace, right past the house and into the adjoining street. As he cleared the corner, his mind holding onto the roof dweller’s psychic scent, he caught a brief hint of movement between two houses a way down the road. Drawing in a fast breath and gathering his energy, he increased his speed, hammering along the road, now too fast for a normal eye to see as anything more than a blur. He ducked between the two houses as his quarry had done. They were inhumanly fast, though not as fast as him. He saw them vanish over the fence at the back of one property. He ran and jumped, clearing the seven foot fence effortlessly. As he landed on the other side he found himself in a large concreted area, some sort of loading bay or car park behind a huge building, perhaps a warehouse. On the other side of the concrete space the grey clad figure was half up the wall of the building.

  They stopped climbing, hanging to the corrugated walls, staring at Isiah. He skidded to a halt in the middle of the wide open space and stared back. The person dropped lightly to the ground and stood facing him, some twenty yards separating them. Isiah smiled. Brave. Or stupid.

  The figure took a few steps forward. Something about the way they moved triggered the start of a thought in Isiah’s mind but it was stopped dead as the sudden swell of MageSign rose from them. Isiah threw up a barrier of pure energy as a bolt
of power shot from the stranger’s outstretched hands. As he staggered back, surprised by the force of the blow, his attacker broke into a run, bearing down on him like a missile. Another bolt of energy pulsed out from the grey covered hands and Isiah took it again on his shield, ready for the impact this time. The stranger was taking no chances, using enough power to destroy any normal man. They were clearly wary of whatever power they had sensed in him. As the energy of the attack and defence crackled in the cold of the early morning air they were upon him, flying forward with a well executed kick.

  Isiah clenched both fists and sidestepped, blocking the kick to one side and sweeping his arm around in a looping blow. His assailant was quick, ducking his counter-attack and landing on one leg as the other swept around in a graceful arc. Their shin connected with the back of Isiah’s ankles and swept his legs clean out from underneath him. With a grunt of surprise and annoyance he fell, tucked, rolled. He came up as a grey fist flew towards his chin. Turning his head to one side, the blow shooting past close enough for him to feel the wind of its passing, he grabbed the forearm in one meaty hand and powered out his other hand in an open palmed blow. His palm landed with a satisfying thump high on his attacker’s chest, eliciting a rush of exhalation.

  Without any time to celebrate his strike, he felt the person’s arm and hand twist against his thumb, the weak point of his grip. Isiah’s grip was anything but weak. Realising they could not break free, the grey clad attacker leapt up and over, grabbing hold of his wrist themselves, and landed behind him, pulling his own forearm across his throat. He felt their knee slam into his spine. Again he grunted, this time in surprise and pain. This person was very good and very powerful.